Ooho, the edible water bottle

Skipping Rocks Lab, a team of design students from London Imperial College and Royal College of Art, recently revealed an invention that could help eliminate one of the world’s biggest environmental threats: plastic pollution. Called “Ooho”, the biodegradable blob bottle is made from a double gelatinous membrane of calcium chloride and brown algae. It can be safely thrown away – or even eaten. What’s more, anyone can make an Ooho at home without any fancy equipment. It was inspired by the structure of an egg yolk, and borrows its design from the “spherification” technique first used by the culinary industry to make fake caviar in the 1950s, and later for bubble tea. The main innovation of the Ooho is the size of the bubble. Still in its testing phase, Ooho still has some kinks – it’s not resealable, for instance – but the team is confident that someday soon it will be ready for mass production. I (Max Borka)